


All Love Ever Does

by esljackzimmermann (QuietLittleVoices)



Series: crushes are hard. [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 5+1 Things, M/M, endgame jack/bitty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 04:22:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4773356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietLittleVoices/pseuds/esljackzimmermann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Jack had a crush, and one time it actually worked out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Love Ever Does

**Author's Note:**

> This is both crack and not? I blame Justine aka bittyhoney on tumblr; you indulge me too much. It's glorious.

1\. Kent Parson

Jack hadn’t really had time for crushes during most of his life. Between hockey, school, and more hockey there hadn’t really been time.

It wasn’t that things had slowed down - actually they’d sped up - but with Kent it just felt like everything stopped. It felt like for just a second, he was just Jack. No expectations, no responsibilities, just a teenage boy.

It was amazing. It was terrifying. When he was near Kent it was like nothing could touch him - nothing could touch either of them. Sweaty palms and butterflies, however, were soon replaced by the haze of his medication mixed with alcohol.

Jack was pretty sure that this was what love felt like - like he was on top of the world, but at the same time every minute could be the end of the world. He tried not to think about it too much. When he did, he took more medication. More and more and more and then….

The eighth call to Kent that went without an answer after the draft was what it took to make the feelings subside. They didn’t go away and Jack didn’t think that they ever really would, but they did fade. Just a little.

 

2\. Ryan Miramontes

Jack was surprised, so soon after everything that had happened, when he felt the butterflies in his chest again. He was not happy about it.

Apparently, however, his emotions didn’t listen to logic. It was a bad time to be getting sweaty palms - around his captain of all people.

That wasn’t to say that he was particularly surprised at who he had ended up crushing on. Hockey was what was most important to him - it was fitting that those he felt affectionate towards found it just as important. Usually to a lesser and debatably healthier degree but it was important to them, too.

Ryan wasn’t NHL-bound but he was good - really good. And he was a good captain; he took the frogs under his wing and made sure they all knew the team politics necessary to stay afloat. Sure, there was a bit of a difference with Jack being Ryan’s age instead of four years younger like the rest of the frogs, so maybe Ryan was a little nicer to him than the others because they had that common ground - at least, that's what Jack told himself.

It wouldn’t really matter if Ryan liked him, or if he 'really liked' Ryan - it couldn’t happen with Jack fresh out of rehab and in the closet to... just about everyone, save three therapists, Kent, and Shitty.

Jack didn’t tell anyone about his crush until after graduation that year. He told Shitty while they were laying on the floor of Jack’s dorm room at three in the morning and Shitty just laughed.

“You like Monty?!”

Jack just nodded and Shitty nudged his shoulder.

“Hey - Monty’s a cool dude. Are you gonna keep in contact?”

Jack didn’t answer and Shitty didn’t say anything else. They stared at the flat white ceiling in silence until they both passed out.

 

3\. Jonathan Morais

The fucking TA.

Jack couldn’t feel more cliché if he tried - pining after the Teacher's Assistant over the two hundred other people in the class.

So he does what any 22-year-old second year college student would and asks for way more help than he actually needs. His e-mails to Jon range from ‘I’m really not sure what Professor Williams wants in this assignment’ to ‘Could you give me input on my essay?’ to flat out lying about having attended class to get lecture notes from him.

They hook up at a kegster. In the morning, Jack asks him to coffee, or maybe dinner, if he’d like that?

Jon looks apologetic. “I have a girlfriend,” he says.

Jack kind of wants to punch him in that moment but Jon leaves before he can make a decision on that front.

 

4\. John Johnson

Jack grabbed a protein bar from the kitchen. He’d never really looked at Johnson at all, even though he’d been the goalie for Jack's entire time at Samwell. Now that he was looking, though, he could admire that Johnson really was fairly attractive.

All of a sudden, Johnson started to laugh. He clapped a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I’m super flattered, dude, and I get that this is just to fulfill the arbitrary format set out for you, but there’s no way I’m the endgame here.”

Jack took a bite from his protein bar and nodded slowly, trying to act like he actually knew what Johnson was talking about before he escaped to his room.

 

5\. Anthony Clark

He lasted until training camp before another embarrassing bout of emotions took him over. It was his roommate ‘Tony, but the guys call me Iron Man'. Of course. Jack was more frustrated at himself than anything.

Tony didn’t have a girlfriend or anything else, Jack made sure. They hooked up after the guys went for a beer at the end of the day and though Jack didn’t have anything, Tony was a little buzzed. It wasn’t too much - big hockey boys, especially Canadian ones, took a lot to get really drunk.

They stumbled into their room minutes before lights-out. Later, Jack wouldn’t be able to say who leaned in first, but suddenly they were kissing - if you could even call it kissing. Open mouths, breathing each other’s air, hot and wet and fast.

“I’ve never done that with another dude before,” Tony admitted after it was over. “I liked it.”

Jack nodded but didn’t say anything. The butterflies in his stomach started to beat against his lungs, crushing the air out, before he got a handle on it.

They kept their pattern for the rest of training camp - every night, they’d stumble back to the hotel, make out and trade sloppy hand jobs with the lights off, then fall asleep and do it all over again the next day.

They hadn’t talked about what it meant but Tony called him once a day for the week after camp was over and Jack didn’t pick up. Couldn’t bring himself to, even though Tony had as much to loose as he did if the truth came out. Any time he thought about it, the violent butterflies came back.

 

+1. Eric Bittle

Jack realized that he had a crush on Bittle during the summer after Bittle’s first year. They texted some - not a lot, but more than Jack texted anyone else besides Shitty - and they Skyped a few times, even.

At first it was like normal - butterflies, sweaty palms, awkward and thinly-veiled requests for coffee. Half way through the first semester of his senior year, though, that changed. Sure, he still felt that affection towards Bittle - still knew that he liked Bittle ‘that way’ - but it settled down. He felt comfortable with Bittle, felt at home and settled into his skin in a way that he hadn’t for as long as he could remember.

It was so different, so opposite to how it had been with Kent that it really threw Jack. He’d thought that that had been love, but this was closer to the way it was described in books.

Jack wasn’t sure what to do with that information. Not until after the Winter break, when it was still cold out and the snow pressed in from every side like a blanket over the Earth; made everything silent and still in a way that it never was at any other time of year.

“Do you want to go for coffee?” Jack asked from the table as Bittle took a pie out of the oven and placed it carefully on the counter.

“Sure! Just let me get my coat.”

Jack got up and stepped in Bitty’s way as he tried to get around the table. They paused, nearly chest to chest, and Jack looked down to meet Bitty’s eyes and take his hand. “I want to be clear this time,” he started slowly, “I mean as a date.”

“Oh!” Bitty blushed and then just as suddenly started to grin. “That’s good. I’d like that.”

Jack smiled back at him. “I’ll get your coat. Wouldn’t want you to freeze to death when it’s five degrees.”

Bittle rolled his eyes and knocked his shoulder against Jack’s. They walked out into the hall and put on their coats and boots before braving the outdoors. Light flurries of snow tumbled from the thick clouds overhead and Jack looked down at Bitty’s flushed face. The world was quiet, and he felt at home.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work up on this pseud; I have a few other omgcp fics on my other/main pseud but I'm trying to distance myself from my old fandom so I'm going to start posting this stuff here, rather than there. If that makes sense.


End file.
